An intersectional feminist event for people of South, East, South-East Asian descent, the LGBTQIA+ community and allies. Come together, share experiences, begin discourse and find empowerment.

Women* have historically been the object of sexual exploitation and fetishism, however that type of objectification increases when it comes to women* of colour and LGBTQIA+. Of course, these are not the only topics of importance but a community that requires more visibility and solidarity.

The WE ARE NOT SAME SAME event highlights the misconception that all Asian countries can be placed under the one umbrella, without regard or respect towards their differences in culture, individuality and history. This event follows up the I AM NOT A FORTUNE COOKIE event and will be spotlighting the implications encircling exotification, sexism, objectification, racism, stereotyping and diaspora.

It is apparent that many shy away from discussing the social, cognitive and emotional roots of prejudice. This is a way we can come together to begin discourses surrounding issues within our society and better understand how to move towards a more equal future. I invite you all to come and enjoy this two-day event!

THE SEA RUNS THRU MY VEINS features four protagonists who, based on their very own individual challenges and life circumstances, share different perspectives on the topic of happiness. Sabuha Salam, long-term host of the monthly party Gayhâne, fled from Ruhr Area to Berlin in the late 1990s to live their queer identity freely. Llanquiray Valioska Painemal Morales, Mapuche with a Chilean passport and an experienced activist for the rights of refugees, migrants and indigenous people, went to the former Soviet Union before she came to Berlin in the 1990s. Neomi Ilan, a long-standing queer-feminist activist and cancer survivor from Israel/ Palestine, has been living through a lot of changes since her severe illness three years ago. Amir Zandieh, an electrician whose home is in Berlin since the 1970s, started to grapple with philosophical questions after the failed revolution in Iran.

We are a group of people from different countries who permanently or partly live in Istanbul. We are all familiar with circus activities such as juggling, choreography works, dance, music and theatre. We made our experiences with social circus in Turkey, Greece, Myanmar and Germany. We worked with different groups of people and decided that we want to start a social circus project in Istanbul.

We use circus training to help children to develop their physical conditions as well as creating group processes and building shows together with the children to let them experience the realization of their fantasies. We focus on experimenting with democratic decision making, gender equality and planting seeds of solidarity.

We will work with children from poor neighbourhoods with few possibilities. So far we will have a regular workshop in Tarlabasi and Okmeydani. We are open to work with more groups in future.

Heavy metal as a genre and its surrounding music community is often understood as a space dominated by whiteness, heterosexism and cis-masculinity. While there is no doubt that these power structures and mechanisms of oppression are prevailing and reproduced in the scene, heavy metal is also a space of empowerment and an outlet for frustration and rage for its fans of color, its queers and female fans.

The Sycamore Network was established in 2017 aiming to carve out a space for women, queers and POC in the metal scene. We want to raise awareness of existing forms of violence and oppression, fight against them and change the subculture. At the same time we aim to center artists and fans from marginalized positions and empower them.

Our primary tool for reaching these goals is our fanzine which hopes to open up a worldwide conversation between people in our target audience.

In 2012, Burak Bektas was violently murdered by a group of neo-nazis which triggered a chain of displacement in the community. His murder followed a series of similar cases across Germany, notably that of Luke Holland, Enver Šimšek, Habil Kiliç, Mehmet Turgut, and Michèle Kiesewetter. Notable organisations like The Peoples’ Tribunal, Ramazan Avci and Initiative 6. April have made significant shifts in the way victims are placed into protection and how they tackle national prejudices. Bektas’ murder is symbol to the current lives of many marginalised communities submitted to violence with no guarantee of protection from the law or justice towards their lost loved ones. The NSU trials that covered some of these cases were considered prepertuating victims’ testimonies. An artistic project by Forensic Architecture challenges these cases through counter-forensic investigations into the murder of Halit Yozgat in Kassel (2006) by using public court data to oppose the case’s verdict. In its presentation, included in documenta14 (2017), it created new evidence to oppose the final verdict and its limitations on the legitimacy of law and justice performed. The story of this case, as of many, points to where patriarchy, dark legacies of colonialism, and any sort of Othering ought to be dismissed. The police regressed and issued new evidence to the court not previously released to dismiss the hearing and close the case after the intervention of counter-forensics from the FA team creators. The project shows the paradox between science, technology and fiction and how its victims’fates were later revealed to be connected to a series of racially motivated murders carried out by the National Socialist Underground. The Forensic Architecture team was invited by the organization The People’s Tribunal “Unraveling the NSU Complex” to look into what could possibly be the collusion of a Western European state in violent crimes.

“We organize against patriarchy, war, racism and fascism! War, fascism, capitalism, poverty and violence are part of one system. We don’t want to change this system, we want it gone! Germany and other Western countries profit for centuries from the colonisation of the world. They still profit from war and genocide, and export weapons to conflict regions. When people flee, they are met with racist and sexist state violence. We fight against racism and fascism in the streets and in the parliament! We fight against state attempts to criminalize resistance! We fight to end femicide and domestic violence. We struggle against rape culture, where violence against women*, non-binary, inter* and trans*people is perceived as normal – at work, by state authorities, on the streets, at home.This society is built on the systematic exploitation of women*: of our labor, our bodies, and our spirit. It isolates women* from each other – in prisons, Lagers, workplaces and homes.

No matter how bad a situation of a group of people, women* in this group often have worse conditions. To free and liberate ourselves, in a time when hegemonic governments have decided to support attacks and fascism around the world, we have no choice but to come together and fight back! We have no choice but revolution! We want to build a society based on communal life and feminist solidarity! Where water and land are common goods, not private property! We fight for our self-determination over our existence, our gender identity, our bodies and our spirits! We will fight and we will win by organizing ourselves and defending ourselves! By practicing solidarity with each other!By organizing International Strikes! By taking the streets! BY FIGHTING TOGETHER!”